Wednesday, May 4, 2016

From Big City to Small Town

Howdy Y'all!
I guess that is how they say it now days in Cedertown hickville Georgia!  Wow it is a hoot here!!  It has been a good week.  Saying goodbye to Chamblee and my amazing companion Sister Bringhurst was way hard, but I know that this is where the Lord would have me be.  I have felt that on a many of occasion here in the past 5 days or so.  I love the people of Chamblee, but I love the people in Cedertown as well!  The people here are incredible!  They are truck southerners with their sweet tea, thick southern accents, and missing teeth.  Wow I love it here.

My companion's name is Sister Sundwall.  She is from Tremonton, Utah, and she has been out on a misison for 3 months.  She is really nice.  I already know that i am going to be learning alot from her.  She is a great missionary  and we are working hard here in Cedertown because Cedertown is ready to harvest.  There are sooo many prepared people here and we have seen soo many miracles!!

Monday: I mostly just packed all PDAy and then we whet and had an awesome FHE with the Mata Family and Fermin!  It was hard saying goodbye to them, but they are so strong and I love them!

Tuesday: We had a great disctrict meeting.  It is weird saying goodbye to the district Ive been in for 10 months, but it was great being able to say my testimony and here the other missioanries who are leaving's testimony.  I love my fellow servants.  We visited lots of people to say goodbye.  We had dinner with the Zuniga's and Alex.  We had pig feet.  Boy I'm not going to miss some of the crazy food we eat haha.  It was an adventure though.  Oh and I saved the toenail of the foot that was in my soup, maybe I'll send it to you mom? ;) Then we went and taught Flor and Rogelio the law of chastity.  That was a great last lesson to end on! It went super!  I love C
hamble!

Wednesday: We drove to Peachtree for transfers.  Saying goodbye to Sister Bringhurst was really hard.  I got my new companion and we headed off on a two hour drive to Cedertown.  The 7 lane highway gradually got smalled the closer we got to Cedertown and ended up a 1 lane highway haha!  Back in the boonies small town.  It is like Salmon Idaho mixed with Island park.  The houses are 5 miles appart.  It is super great.  It is quiet and I love not being in the city!!  We visited some awesome cute member families.  I love the people here.

Thursday: We had a great weekly planning session.  I definitely felt the holy ghost confirm to me that i am supposed to be here as we went over all the people we are teaching and going to start teaching.  I felt super pumped and ready to go after that planning session.  The Holy spirit helped us come up with some AWESOME finding activities and we are so excited to put those in action.  We went finding for a couple of hours.  We found this awesome guy named Odell on a bike and he is so legit.  We havent been able to teach him officailly yet, but because of him we have found so many other people.  We visited an awesome less active spanish family.  Their family makes up 1/18 of the branch, so wouldnt that be cool to get them reactivated?!  It was a great day.

Friday: A member took us out to lunch at a place called Gran Gran's.  First experience of real southern food.  Mashed taters, chicken fried stake, deep fat fried corn on the cob, homeade mac n chees, and a biscut! mm mm mm!  We taught a few part member families.  Those are always the best.  It is so much fun being able to meet sooo many new people!  I really love that!  We taught a few lessons in Spanish.  That was great!  During one of the lessons, as i was talking about the Book of Mormon, i cockroach started crawling up my leg eek!! i smoothly wacked it off using my Book of Mormon.  Gotta love the country.  There are sooo many bugs out here!!!  We made a bunch of calls from the Spanish area book and some from the english one.  We are excited to start visiting all these wonderful people and working with the less actives.  Most of the less actives are spanish people, so there is a lot of work here to do that is spanish.  These less actives are JUST as important as baptizing new members... I have a strong testimony of that.  They are all God's children and Heavenly Father needs all his children back to him.  

Saturday: We went to Alabama and made a Garden!!!!  It was so fun to be in a different state.  That was too cool!  We went and helped an elderly couple in the ward week out 3 garden beds.  It was fun work!  I have 9 blisters on my hands, haha Hermana Stewart is week sauce haha!  It was so much fun being able to help them out.  It is beautiful where they live! We got ourselves a sandwich from a cute little sandwich shop in Cave springs, that was fun.  Then we went and we went on a team up to this awesome hispanic family with a member. Then we did a bunch of finding and visiting people.

Sunday: BEST day so far here.  We had meeting early in the morning.  Then we went and tried knocking on a few people's doors to remind them for church.  As we were driving back to church we drove past this one house and I noticed that there was 2 lil girls out playing in the yard and the mom was sitting on the steps and she looks so sad.  I told Sister Sundwall to turn around.  The Holy Ghost told us we needed to go talk to her.  We got out and struck up a conversation.  We told her that God loved her.  She had tears streaming down her face.  I knew we were sent there for a reason.  We invited her to church, but due to certain cercumstances she wasnt able to come.  We have an appointment with this lady and i am soo excited!!  She is prepared.  I know she is.  And if not her, someone by her maybe, but i was so glad the spirit guided us to find her. 

Church was great!!   I get the awesome opportunity to translate!!!! ahhh ive never done that before.  I had the neatest experience sitting in the back of the chapel with my lil headset and mic translating into Spanish the testimonies and sacrament meeting.  I was so nervous to translate because they talk so fast and in such thick southern accents.  I was just praying so hard that the Lord would give Hermana Stewart the strength and power to do that.  It was one of the most powerfullest experience feeling the spirit work through my mouth and ears.  I know that it was not me translating, but that it was the spirit. There were words that were said that I have never studied before.  The gift of tongues is real my family.  There is no way that Hermana Stewart could have translated, there is just no way.  But I know that the Lord can do anything, and he will help us accolmplish that which he needs done.  As we sang the closing song "nearer my God to thee" I couldn't hold my tears in.  I felt so close to my Heavenly Father in that moment.  Sister Sundwall and I taught the Spanish Sunday school class.  We didn't have any books, but luckily I knew it was on agency.  So once again the spirit helped us again acomplish what he needed us to do.  It was great, and the family we taught was so cute!  This branch is a missioanry branch!!!  Yay!!!  It was a great time on sunday!  and hearing relief society in english was actaully really great! :) so i am in an english branch.  about 30 go each week.  It is very small but it is great and i love them all so much!  We had a wonderful evening visiting people.  We had dinner at an awesome families house.  They have a son on a mission and two daughters at home, one is preparing for a mission!  It was great!  

Really, life is good.  It is what you make it, and it is all about your attitude.  We are working hard and we are having a lot of fun, and we are already seeing so many miracles!!  Being a missionary is the BEST it donsnt matter where you are!! "behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy." 1 Nephi 17:21 I know that things and location DOES NOT determine our happiness.  WE determine our happiness!!!!  "and it came to pass that they lived after the manner of happiness." 2 nephi 5:27.  I am happy my wonderfuly family because i have the opportunity to share this beautiful message with the people here in Ceder Town.  Black or white, english speaking or spanish speaking, crazy or calm, the toothless and the toothful, hick or not, God loves them all, and they need this Gospel.  I love them all, and i am sooo honored to be a CederTown Missioanry!!!  I love you all so much! I hope you have a blessed week!
Hasta Pranto Y'all!
Hermana Stewart 
xoxo 
P.S. 6 days til skpye!!!!! I cant wait to see your faces!!!!!
P.P.S. my new address!!!!!  I LOVE LETTERS!!!!
504 Valley Drive #F
Cedertown, GA 30125

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